Gardening - or Fitting in the Fitness

From a reader's perspective: How many writers do we know of who have died of heart attacks, suffer the problems associated with being overweight, or have diabetes? It's a bit of a worry, isn't it? I mean, if our favourite writers don't look after themselves, then they might not be able to write, or finish, their next book. And that would make a lot of us really sad. And not just because of the loss of a book, but because of the loss of another bright point in our lives.

From a writer's perspective: How many writing days have you lost to a headache, or to just feeling blah, or because your blood pressure was playing up, or because, for some reason, your vision was a bit blurry and you just couldn't see the words? How many times do you look in the mirror and wonder where all the love handles came from... and when they arrived? How much do you wonder if you'll ever be able to get down to a healthy weight and if you should even bother? And how many times have you started and exercise program only to have it cut short because, well, exercise just made you feel so much worse than no exercise - and, besides, it ate into your writing time?

I'm not going to answer any of these questions, but it did dawn on me that I should probably do something about my utter lack of fitness. You know, feel better, write better... or so I hope.

So, I started walking every day... and then I stopped. Why? Because there was just so much else to do! I wanted to garden, for a start. And I was worried about overdoing it. Sitting at an office desk for an eight-hour work day, or sitting in class, on the bus, in the car, and then sitting at home to write assignments or another novel, for more than a few years,  has taken its toll.

So, I took another look at what I wanted, and got into the gardening, because:

1. I hate having tasks nagging at me, hate it;
2. It's a nice garden; it deserves to be pretty;
3. I love gardening;
4. Gardening uses more muscles than walking.

And I found out the following:

1. I really do like gardening;
2. Gardening really does use more muscles than walking;
3. I can use fixed tasks to make sure I don't do too much at once and cripple myself for the next day;
4. I feel better after a half hour of gardening than I do after a half hour of walking; and
5. I like the way the garden is starting to look.

So, I think I'll take a bit of time each week, to talk gardening and maybe show you how its growing. Tuesdays, I think. Mondays, I'll keep exploring different types of writing, and Wednesdays are for the birds... or spiders... or whatever else I find interesting enough to photograph.

This is where I'm at in the first garden section:

and this is where I'm going next: